2014 G4C Festival: Videos of Talks and Photos Now Online!

We hope you were among the 840 attendees who joined us in person for the 11th Annual Games for Change Festival (or one of the thousands who watched our Livestream)! But if not, or if you want to relive your favorite moments, we have plenty of:

This year, attendees came from a variety of backgrounds: game development and industry (25%), nonprofits, government and NGOs (25%), education (20%), film and media (10%), and a mix of others from business, funding, and elsewhere. Participants led lively discussions around creating and distributing games to raise awareness, to affect behavior, to promote learning, or to build social movements.

From talks to demos, we discussed how to balance artistic approaches to game design vs. an emphasis on evaluation and metrics. We highlighted independent perspectives vs. large-scale industry initiatives. We played, listened, debated, learned, networked, partied, and then brought even more games and fun to the streets of NYC at the Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair on April 26.

We hope to hear your thoughts on this year’s Festival and that you enjoy the resources we linked to above and the following recap!

2014 G4C Festival by the Numbers …

840 attendees who came for talks, panels, and workshops from 110+ speakers.

Two-thirds of registrants attended their first Festival this year.

10% of attendees came from outside of the U.S. from 18 different countries.

50% of speakers and 47% of registrants were female.

8 G4C Awards nominees in the 2014 G4C Awards. Congratulations to our winners! Papers, Please took home the Most Innovative Game and Best Gameplay awards, Gone Home won the Game of the Year Award, and Mission US: Cheyenne Odyssey received the Most Significant Impact Award. Play the winners and nominees.

5 live outdoor games from Come Out & Play and Carnegie Mellon University were played by attendees — see players in action!

$25,000 prize awarded in our Shoot for the Moon game design contest, sponsored by the Schusterman Family Foundation. Independent game studio Theorify won the cash prize for its game, SpaceIL Academy. The game Moon Rush won the People’s Choice Award. Try finalists’ demos.

4 in-development projects — Nevermind, Off Grid, CyberRun, and Our City— pitched their games to an expert panel of judges who voted on each concept. Nevermind, a 2013 G4C Award nominee presented by Erin Reynolds, took first place.

275,000 people played at the first-ever G4C Public Arcade. Kids and parents came out to visit more than 10 game companies and their games at our arcade at the Tribeca Family Festival Street Fair. See photos of the fun.

??? ways to classify types of impact from games. A panel of game design experts kicked off the discussion of the different ways games can have impact and when and how impact assessment can be implemented in designing games. This group will continue this research, which will be shared through a final report. Voice your thoughts or share potential resources by sending them an email.